


My Lamp is Almost Burned

by OhMyFreddy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Borderline Abusive Relationships, Destiel from Sam's POV, I mean we might as well just watch the show at this point., M/M, MOC Dean, Sam-Centric, Sam/Jess mentioned - Freeform, So much angst, just a bit of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-09
Updated: 2015-07-09
Packaged: 2018-04-08 12:22:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4304877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhMyFreddy/pseuds/OhMyFreddy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For years, Sam had tolerantly watched his big brother and their best friend weave an infuriatingly deficient dance around one another. When they finally crash together, Sam finds himself holding the splintered pieces together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Lamp is Almost Burned

**Author's Note:**

> This fic features instances of abusive relationships. In my opinion, the instances depicted are no worse than the physical violence and sometimes hurtful language that is canonical and, frankly, typical, between the boys. However, the lines of what is acceptable are blurred in this fic, and so these issues are addressed.  
> Further, I want to reiterate that Dean’s abrasive behavior in this fic is due entirely to the effects of the Mark of Cain. We all know that without that awful thing, he’s a precious, tender dewdrop who loves cooking and LARPing and pampering his Chevrolet. We good? We’re good.  
> If you or someone you know is suffering in an abusive relationship, please visit www.thehotline.org and seek help. If you are located outside of the United States, feel free to contact me via my Tumblr account at ohmyfreddy.tumblr.com. We will get you the help you need.  
> This fic takes place after Ep 10.03, and through Ep 10.09. I took plenty of liberties with canon divergence.  
> I love all of you! Tell me anything you’d like!

Sam answered his phone with a grunt, and, true to his word to get drunk, when he fumbled open the door of the bunker to admit Castiel, it was with squinting eyes and unkempt hair.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs in the war room, Castiel faced Sam.

“Would you like me to eradicate the symptoms of your hangover?” Castiel lifted a hand towards Sam’s skull.

Sam gave a self-depreciating laugh. “Aren’t I just getting what I deserve?”

Castiel stared, hand aloft. “This time, I don’t think you are.”

Sam bit his bottom lip, considering. “Then, yes, please,” he answered. He tilted his head into Castiel’s reach, then his whole body tensed as a trickle of cleansing Grace crept through him. He exhaled as Castiel drew away.

“You should drink something,” intoned Castiel. “Something nonalcoholic, I mean.”

Sam inhaled and blinked rapidly, his eyes bright and no longer bloodshot.

“Thanks, Cas. Let’s see what we’ve got.” Sam turned towards the steps that led into the kitchen, swiveling his head back to make sure the angel was following. “You want something?”

Castiel’s eyes roamed each corner as he stepped down into the kitchen, absorbing its features like he hadn’t visited the room dozens of times before. “What do you have?” he directed to Sam’s back, where he was stooped in front of the icebox.

“Uh, well, water. And, um, cranberry juice, Dr. Pepper, milk. Wait, nope, not the milk.” Sam transferred the jug onto the floor beside his feet. “Got beer and scotch, too, if _you_ want.”

Castiel contemplated the list. “What’s the Dr. Pepper taste like?” he asked, with a tone of apology. “I haven’t mastered the variety of soft drinks.”

Sam laughed and looked skyward, seeking an answer. “Dr. Pepper? Um, spicy? Kinda amaretto-y? Overly sweet? I’m sorry, man, they’re Dean’s. I honestly haven’t had one in ages.”

“I’ll have one.”

Sam passed him the frigid can, then moved to upend the expired milk down the sink. He poured himself a glass of the cranberry juice, which he had purchased in anticipation of easing the very hangover he’d just been cured of.

Castiel tabbed open the can, and clacked it gently against Sam’s glass when it was extended towards him. Castiel followed Sam into the library, drawing on the beverage. They lounged on opposite sides of one of the long tables, listening to the quiet hum of the computers in the war room.

“This is truly awful,” Castiel finally muttered into the quiet, then, “but I wouldn’t like something else, thank you, Sam.”

Sam eased back into his seat, smiling, but still scrutinized Castiel with all the manners of a good host.

“Everything went well with Hannah?”

“Yes, I escorted her back to the gate without incident.” Castiel eyed his abandoned soda can. “She’s very competent,” he continued, “A better soldier than I ever was.”

Sam swiped away a ring of condensation from the tabletop with his sleeve. “You’re not a man of war, Cas.”

Castiel stared down the hallway towards Dean’s room.

“He’s sleeping, still. You want him?” Sam asked.

Sam didn’t comment on the overly long stretch of time that Castiel considered, but Sam could feel the friction on his tongue from the way he’d phrased the question.

“No. Let him relax while he will. I’m sure he’ll be recklessly restless in no time.”

~*~ 

Dean recovered nicely. He let Sam feed him, and Sam let Dean feed them both, because that arrangement seemed to make Dean even happier. Sam helped him clean the living spaces in the bunker. They replaced a splintered door. Dean reacted to the scrubbed surfaces as if it was he himself being wiped clean. Sam could see his chest loosen, his eyes brighten, his smile widen. With one working arm, Sam carefully transported Dean’s record player into the library, and cranked it to a volume that was nearly uncomfortable, but Dean’s hips gave an immediate, delighted swivel, and Sam left it.

Sam drove them one morning to the Lovewell Reservoir. He lifted a couple of lawn chairs off of an unsupervised pontoon boat, and when they set up with their cooler near some picnic tables, Dean produced two pairs of sunglasses that he’d stolen while Sam had paid for gas. (“They’re not coming out of the cashier’s paycheck, Sammy. No, we’re keeping the chairs, too. _Fine._ But you’re not climbing on that trailer again. _I’ll_ put them back, you nun.”)

Dean wanted to hunt again. And Sam wanted him happy.

~*~ 

Sam called Castiel after Dean emptied a clip of silver bullets into a dead shapeshifter.

~*~

“I could see his horns,” the angel confessed quietly to Sam.

He was leaning on his forearms on the island in the kitchen, facing Sam’s back while he scrambled eggs on one of the burners. Sam turned to frown at him. Castiel stared at his own hands.

“When I turned the corner, you had the knife to his throat, and I could see that he was ready to kill you. He was crackling with sparks and smoke was curling in his stomach.”

Sam moved the frying pan onto the island, staring at the angel, straining to hear him.

“If I had been one moment late-“

Sam put a hand on Castiel’s forearm. “If you’d have been one moment too late, you’d have just handled it without me.”

Sam turned to take a plate out of one of the cabinets. He slid it onto the island, and let his eyes wander back to the unmoving angel as he scraped the eggs out of the pan. Castiel’s eyes were unblinking, absent, focused unseeing somewhere past the walls of the kitchen. Sam watched closely, eyeing Castiel’s chest, wondering if he was even breathing for his vessel.

“Cas?” he prodded.

Castiel’s head turned to face him, the rest of his body kept still. It was unnervingly birdlike. Sam pursued, “You’d have handled it. Right?”

Castiel didn’t offer an answer, and watching the way Castiel’s eyes darkened, Sam realized he didn’t want one.

~*~

Castiel continued to assist Hannah in corralling wayward angels, even if Sam could tell his heart wasn’t in the mission. Castiel spent more time in the bunker, and Sam decided that whichever book the angel seemed to always have his hands on was just a prop. Castiel hadn’t looked at a word of text in days, as far as Sam could tell. Those blue eyes were fixed on Dean from the moment he appeared within Castiel’s line of sight.

Sam knew why he did it. Dean was agitated. The Mark of Cain’s power was overcoming him just as surely as it had before his death and metamorphosis. He was using more and more alcohol to quell the fires he wouldn’t talk about, and he was unpredictable and frightening on hunts.

Dean’s unpredictability made it difficult for Sam to interfere with Castiel’s attention. In all honestly, he couldn’t tell whether the angel was helping or not. Sometimes he thought that Castiel’s constant examination was surely making Dean itch, and other times, when Dean would start a series of twitchy, aggravated laps around the bunker, it seemed that the calm, tender stare from the angel was the only thing that pulled him down from his fits of anxiety.

~*~ 

Castiel’s anxiety was almost harder to deal with. He often wouldn’t speak, and Sam had come close to throttling him on those occasions where he’d find Castiel standing over his napping brother, expression absolutely heartbroken, mouth absolutely silent. When Dean lost his temper, sometimes Castiel would allow a look of panic to cross his face, and then deny that Sam had seen it.

When Dean directed his agitation at Castiel directly, the angel’s emotions were as erratic as the hunter’s.

One afternoon, feeling absolutely at the end of his rope, Sam left Castiel in one of the dusty storerooms, and found Dean calmly assembling sandwiches in the kitchen. 

“Dean. Dean! Look.”

Dean peered obediently into the box Sam was holding.

“These are _the only_ spare bulbs I have found in the whole bunker. You can’t just buy bulbs like these any more. I think they may have even been commissioned specifically for this place.”

Dean raised his eyebrows. “So?”

Sam hissed, “Cas keeps blowing them.”

Dean nodded solemnly, examining the bulbs where they settled like eggs in a nest of soft wood shavings.

Sam jerked the box from under his nose, and continued angrily, “He keeps blowing them because of _you_.”

~*~ 

Sam ran more. Sometimes Dean would come with him, and that made it feel less like he was running away.

~*~

Dean didn’t like to be touched these days. Flinched when Sam reached over his lap to collect the remote, leaned stiffly back away from the pretty waitress that stretched to pick up his empty water glass, lost his smile and grit his teeth when a friendly coroner clapped him on the shoulder.

So Sam had even more reason to stop and stare as he rounded the corner into the library, and saw his brother slouching in one of the chairs, his eyes closed and his mouth parted. Castiel stood behind Dean, sleeve of his trench coat slid up to his elbow, with the tips of his fingers slipped intimately just under the collar of Dean’s t-shirt, palm flat against Dean’s shoulder.

~*~

A week later, Castiel was studying the grotesque Enochian graffiti that coated the walls of a church’s sanctuary. He rubbed a hand across one particularly garbled symbol, allowing himself to be distracted with deciphering its meaning, and with listening to Sam’s hushed murmuring somewhere to his left.

The two demons that leapt onto him from a low balcony had his head in a lock and his shoulder out of its socket before he could blink. Castiel thrust a palm to the temple of the demon best within his reach, matching its grip, and burned it from the vessel in a white blaze.

The second demon kept a valiant hold on Castiel’s limp arm. Castiel met its black eyes and grinning mouth while he let the first demon slump to the floor. Before he could reach to destroy the next, it was jerked swiftly away from him.

Sam fell to his knees in front of Castiel. The demon lay practically in his lap, head tilted back to look at the underside of Sam’s chin. It screeched when Sam used his knife to sizzle a shallow slice across its neck. Castiel used his Grace to pin the demon’s limbs to the floor. 

Dean was suddenly in Castiel’s face, eyes full of panic and hands smoothing clinically over Castiel’s face, neck, chest, shoulders-. Dean grimaced when the felt the unnatural twist of Castiel’s shoulder, and immediately moved into position to correct it himself.

Castiel halted him with his functioning hand against Dean’s chest. With a sickening _pop_ , Castiel fixed the shoulder himself, repairing the strained muscles and the developing bruises at the same time. Dean watched until Castiel took a calming breath, then ran his hand experimentally over the shoulder.

Sam watched his brother guide his hand across Castiel’s shoulder. Dean still had his pistol tucked into his free hand, but brought that arm around Castiel’s back and pulled the angel against his chest. The demon below Sam suddenly jerked, as if Castiel had momentarily lost his grip on the thing. Or, Sam thought, maybe Castiel had pressed too hard, and hurt it.

The angel’s eyes were staring, astounded, off into the church above Sam’s head, and he was returning Dean’s embrace. Dean held on a moment longer, and Sam saw his head angle downward, saw how Dean’s mouth would be pressing against Castiel’s shoulder, before he exhaled and released the angel.  Dean turned, and Castiel’s eyes roamed over Dean’s face. After a beat, both green and blue eyes fixed on the captive beneath Sam’s hands.

The demon had hidden behind its vessel’s eyes, but now they flipped once more to inky black under Dean’s attention. It pulled fractionally away from Sam’s knife, and hissed at Dean, “You never come down to visit us, Daddy. We still have everything kept ready for you. Only the best accommodations for our new prince. Our king’s precious consort.”

Sam scratched the demon again, and it screamed. Sam growled into its face, too quiet for Dean to hear, “Over my dead body, asshole.” The demon laughed and strained against Castiel’s hold.

Dean angled his face towards Castiel, and asked, “Can you read all this?”

“Yes.”

“Send him back to Hell, Sam. Cas can patch up the schmuck.” Dean crouched down and leered into the demon’s face. “And keep your slimy fuckin’ paws off my sheets when you get there, cocksucker.”

~*~

The three of them snapped photos of the text until they were satisfied they’d captured it all, then rented a room outside of town. The television was actually decent- large and connected to cable. They watched two of the _Karate Kid_ movies, and Dean made room for Castiel on his bed.  During a commercial break halfway through the second film, Sam shed his jeans and shirts, and turned down his bed. He slid between the sheets in his boxers and a fresh t-shirt, and watched with contentment as Dean mimicked him. Dean cajoled Castiel into makeshift pajamas as well, offering him a white undershirt in exchange for his button-up. Castiel elected to keep his socks on, and lay on top of the bedclothes while Dean nestled beneath them.

When Castiel and Dean declared themselves settled, Sam reached to turn out the lamp between the two beds, smiling when Castiel, who lay closest to him, met his eyes.

Towards the end of the film, during a scene featuring a tea ceremony, Sam’s eyelids began to droop. He stopped fighting sleep, and turned to face Castiel and Dean, making sure they were still watching, before letting his eyes close completely.

It must have been Dean’s chuckle that woke him, because Sam heard it again, quiet but clear, before he opened his eyes. The light from the television illuminated Dean and Castiel’s faces. It was muted, and Sam didn’t dare turn to see if the movie had ended, for his brother was smiling adoringly down at Castiel. Dean lay right up against Castiel’s side, propped up on one elbow, and Castiel lay flat on his back, head barely elevated by a thin pillow.

Dean was whispering to Castiel, and the angel’s stomach suddenly trembled with silent laughter. Dean’s face lit up brighter with a light that didn’t come from the television. He craned his head down, and caught Castiel’s bottom lip in his mouth. Castiel returned the kiss with a serenity that suggested to Sam that this wasn’t the first they’d shared tonight.

Sam closed his eyes and let them have their privacy. He waited until he heard Dean resume a stream of rapid, amused whispering, before breathing in deeply and rolling to face away from them in a manner that appeared as natural, and as if he were truly asleep, as he could manage. The whispering paused for only a moment, and a snicker escaped Castiel.

Sam let the soothing flicker of the television lull him back to sleep. 

~*~

Sam bought himself a beautiful, heavy, expensive, lusciously-leather-padded pair of headphones. He was frequently startled, yes; he’d turn around and Dean or Castiel would be _right there_. Or, one of them would suddenly land a frustrated hand on his shoulder, having been calling his name with no response. But, Jesus, the bedroom doors in the bunker were fitted with these gaping grates.  Would a little bit of muffle-y carpet have killed the Men of Letters? Sam loved his brother, loved the angel, so, so much, but oh my god, he could not listen to that- that slapping sound, or the way that Castiel _growled_ , and though Dean swearing with a raised voice was nothing new, Sam had one particular stream of “ _Oh, fucking Christ, right fucking there! Shit, Cas_ ,” seared into his brain, and Jesus, he had to do _something_ to be able to function in the same building with the two of them.

It was easy, however, pleasant even, to see the two of them preparing dinner hip to hip, to witness one reach over and absently massage the other’s neck after a few hours of research, and yes, it was even just fine with Sam if Dean lingeringly kissed Castiel in plain view before he left to purchase a fuel pump in Hastings.

Sam had always believed that his brother deserved every scrap of happiness he could scratch out of their miserable lives, and to see him grinning and sighing was, in fact, making Sam do the same.

But, Castiel. Sam couldn’t pinpoint the moment he _knew_. Castiel wasn’t a ‘real boy’, and Sam had never once forgot it. So he hadn’t held Castiel to the same standards and tells as he would have the rest of humanity. He had no frame of reference for the choices Castiel made regarding Dean, the proximity he maintained, the way he stared at his brother.

He imagined that the point where Castiel, Eons-Old Angel of the Lord, fell in love with Dean Literally-Dead-at-Twenty-Nine Winchester happened somewhere that Sam wasn’t there to witness.

Now, though, Sam was witnessing. Castiel shimmered. His ever clear eyes lingered on Dean with a softness that nearly made Sam blush. He moved like a danseur, like he was using invisible wings to propel himself against Dean’s chest, between his open arms. Dean’s love was like a sword to a champagne bottle, and each bubble of Castiel’s years’ long devotion spilled forth and glittered over Castiel’s entire character.

But the three of them lived in no fairy tale, and true love wasn’t curing his brother’s affliction.

~*~

That morning, Sam didn’t bother treading carefully through the kitchen. In fact, it was satisfying to hear a low groan come from the library when he allowed a plate to clatter from an irresponsible height into the sink. He wasn’t petty enough to make just enough coffee for himself, however, and did leave half the pot for his brother.

Sam carried his mug and plate of toast into the library, pointedly not looking at Dean as he arranged the dishes around his laptop. Dean had his elbows propped up on the table Sam wasn’t occupying, and his head in his hands. He groaned again. “Jesus, was I here all night?”

After a stretch of silence, Sam finally glared at Dean. He made a thorough sweep of Dean’s table with his eyes, pointedly alighting on the liquor bottles, one empty and the other close behind; the leaves of paper, some ripped into pieces and others smeared with whiskey; and the sticky shards of the glass he’d been enough of a gentleman to use- before he shattered it, and started fitting his tongue directly into the bottles.

Sam turned his eyes back on Dean’s face, and let them linger on the cut on his right cheek. Sam raised his eyebrows and shrugged in answer. He turned back to his computer.

Sam could feel Dean studying him so hard that it was like actually being poked, but he ignored it.

“You workin’ on something?” Dean muttered.

Sam picked up his toast and bit into it, swallowed it down before dispassionately answering, “Nope.”

“Okay-“ Dean started wiping his hands down his face. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw him wince when the heel of his hand drug across his laceration. Dean brought his hand away and stared at it in surprise before gingerly touching the cut to confirm it. Dean looked at Sam again, and Sam was glowering openly at him.

Dean returned the heated stare. “What the fuck is your problem? Why’re you treating me like you just watched me kick a kitten?”

Sam huffed out a laugh that was completely devoid of humor. He bit out, “Pretty close to the mark, actually.”

Dean’s chair scraped so loudly across the floor that they both flinched when Dean shot up from it. Sam watched Dean’s back as he marched down the hall towards their rooms, stumbling twice. The door to Dean’s room slammed, and in seconds clattered open once more. Dean stomped to the doorway of the library. He glared at his little brother and thrust an accusatory finger behind himself, in the direction of his bedroom.

“The fuck happened to my room?”

Sam knew precisely what Dean meant. He had peered into Dean’s vacant room as soon as he woke this morning. The drawers of his dresser were left open at different degrees, their contents spilling over the edges. The closet was a jumble of empty hangers and wrinkled shirts lined up asymmetrically and in clumps. One of the bedside lamps was in the floor and smashed. A piece of plaster the size of a loaf of bread was caved in on one of the walls. The pillows were missing entirely, and the bedclothes lay mangled against the footboard. Spots of blood peppered the white fitted sheet that remained on the mattress, and there was a dark smear of the red liquid across the face of Dean’s mirror.

Sam searched Dean’s face, seeking to catch him in any deception. _Well_. Dean didn’t remember? Fuck. Sam didn’t know if that was better or worse for Castiel.

~*~

That had been the worst blowout so far. Donny had actually thrown Dean out of the bar. He’d been sober enough to drive Castiel and himself back to the bunker, but quickly corrected the issue with five shots of whiskey as soon as he’d ascended from the garage. Castiel was wary, and had enough time to explain to Sam that a young man had carelessly come on to him while Dean was in the restroom, and hadn’t quite wrapped up his flirtation by the time Dean had reemerged.

“That punk-ass bitch nearly got his fucking ass kicked!” Dean shouted, his voice growing louder as he strode from the kitchen into the library.  Castiel looked angry, hands curled into fists. Sam imagined that this was merely a continuation of the tirade Castiel had endured on the ride home. Dean slung back more alcohol. “Lucky I didn’t bash his motherfuckin’ face in.”

“Can we just go to bed and put this behind-“

Dean uncurled one finger from around his tumbler to point it into Castiel’s face, and cut him off, “Can you just tell pussy-ass bitches to keep their fuckin’ hands off you when I turn my back for two fuckin’ seconds?”

“Dean!” Sam protested in the same moment Castiel stepped forward so that Dean’s finger nearly touched his nose, and said through his teeth, “If you would have listen-“

Dean ignored the angel looming into his personal space and let his dilated eyes swivel to land on Sam. “You need to stay the hell out of this.”

Sam narrowed his eyes and advanced, but Castiel stopped his approach with a solid hand against his chest. Dean looked darkly triumphant, and that made Sam press heatedly against Castiel’s weight. Dean swaggered away with a smirk to locate his bottle.

“Let me take him,” Castiel said quietly to Sam.

“ _I_ can take him,” Sam answered, with an entirely different implication.

“Let me just calm him down,” and Castiel was already sliding away towards Dean’s back.

At the first touch of the angel’s hand, Dean petulantly jerked his shoulder away, but Castiel continued speaking to him in low tones, and Dean allowed to next touch to stay. Castiel pressed his chest against Dean’s back, and worked both hands under Dean’s arms. He stroked over Dean’s chest slowly, then Sam could see from the angle of Castiel’s elbow that he was trailing his hand lower and lower, and Dean let his head tip backwards onto Castiel’s shoulder. 

Sam looked away. His stomach was twisting, not from Castiel’s affectionate display, but from Castiel’s implementing such means to attempt to control his manic brother. After a moment of fuming, Sam turned back, and Castiel was steering Dean toward the hallway. Castiel cast one long, troubled look back in Sam’s direction.

Sam endured a half hours’ worth of continued, muted arguing at one of the library tables, then moved his computer to the map table in the war room when the bickering evolved into arrhythmic moaning. 

There was blissful quiet for a whole hour until sudden sounds of scuffling and one enormous crash filled the silence. He heard very clearly, from the volume it was shouted, “Then fuckin’ go! Fuckin’ flap away! Know what? See if that little bar bitch’ll take you!”

Sam rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes, and, bitterly, wished for a sip from the stash of whiskey Dean had hoarded in his room. His head snapped up when Dean’s bedroom door crashed against the wall. Dean was sputtering a stream of abuse that was muffled by the distance. Castiel’s footsteps echoed through the bunker. He appeared in the war room with spots of blood on his shirt, perfectly centered on his chest from where they would have dripped out of his nose. But no blood, no swelling marred his face. Well, that didn’t mean shit on an angel.

“Cas, what-“ Sam shoved back from the map table.  Castiel was juggling a duffle over one shoulder, keys in one fist, and trying to use his remaining fingers to fumble a belt through the loops in his jeans, which he wore still unzipped and unbuttoned.

Castiel silenced Sam when a glare of pure fury. Sam lowered back into his seat.

“Don’t confront him. You’ll make it fucking worse, so just don’t do it. You can call me when he recovers,” Castiel said, and finally got himself dressed. He exited toward the garage.

Sam sat in stunned silence. And then, _fuck that._

Sam prowled through the library and turned to the hallway. He stopped short, for his brother was there, sitting in the floor, back pressed against the tile. The crystal glass in his hand shook in his grip. Sam took a steadying breath and walked in front of Dean, who made no motion to indicate that he noticed.

Sam bent and took Dean under his arms, aiding him to slide up the wall. Dean came up with a groan, and as soon as he was on his feet, shook free of Sam’s grasp, slurring, “Get off.”

Sam eyed the shallow slice on Dean’s face, and he was ready to give him a bit more, straight to his nose, but his eyes were suddenly drawn to a chunk of chipped plaster to the left of Dean’s head, just above the tile. Where he’d carefully had to pry free the claw of a hammer.

Sam’s breath stuttered in his chest, and he kept his hands to himself. “Just keep it down,” he said, and locked himself in his own bedroom.

~*~

Sam gave Dean the condensed version of these events, but made sure he knew that he, Dean, was both at fault and to blame.

Dean listened with his head in his hands, nodding sagely at intervals, but Sam’s anger wasn’t cooling. Sam couldn’t take another night like that, and he wanted some hardcore, repentant remorse to cloud his brother’s face.

Sam snapped, “He’s not your _brother_ anymore, Dean! He’s your _boyfriend_! You know that, right? You understand why that’s different?”

Dean met his eyes, and they were full of fire, not guilt. He matched Sam’s volume. “Yes! Of course I do!”

“So you get that you have to treat him differently now, yeah? That the two of you currently fucking needs to be the _least_ of the changes in your relationship.”

Dean looked away and wiped a hand over his mouth. With shock, Sam watched that mouth tremble. Sam reached for Dean automatically, and, intensifying Sam’s surprise, Dean responded to the touch, gripping Sam’s forearms while Sam did the same to his. Sam’s fingers grazed the blaze on Dean’s arm, but it felt no different from the rest of his fevered skin.

Sam held him there, and tried to put his own frustration behind him. He spoke in nearly a whisper now, and not knowing which words would help the most, he settled with ensuring Dean that he was Sam’s and Castiel’s first, only, priority. That he never had to hide from them, that he never had to tamp down his disquiet until something insignificant finally snapped it. He told Dean that seeing Castiel disgustingly in love made his heart melt, and that finally got Dean to choke out a laugh over his quiet tears.

“Can we just go get him?” Dean asked wearily when Sam had stopped speaking.

“Yeah, of course.” Sam stood, and pulled Dean into a hug, and then braced himself to give Dean a final test. “But he took the Impala.”

Dean only slumped momentarily in his arms. He drew away from Sam and shrugged. “He has good taste in getaway cars.”

~*~ 

Sam called Castiel, who claimed to be at the Kansas Aviation Museum in Wichita. He had meandered there, but Sam told him that it would probably take him three hours to arrive back home. He heard the engine roar to life right before Castiel ended the call.

~*~

Dean waited for Castiel at the bottom of the stairs in the war room. Sam left him there, approving of his wide, sad eyes, and the contrition in his posture. Sam felt like a pervert, spying on the reunion, but his brother-

Fuck it. He had to make sure things were cool, and that was that.

The front door slammed, and Castiel’s footsteps clicked slowly down the stairs.

Dean had to clear his throat twice, but otherwise started off well, voice deep and slow.

“Baby, I’m so sorry.”

Castiel sighed, and there was a rustle of fabric, probably from Dean tentatively stroking at Castiel’s coat.

Dean continued, “I fucked up bad and said some shit that I _did not_ mean, baby. I let-“

Sam heard his brother’s sigh this time. Castiel knew probably better than anyone what the Mark was doing to Dean, but Dean wasn’t here to apologize for what it did to him, only for the way he reacted to the changes.

“I let-“ Dean said, and Sam could hear that he was warring with his control now, “my _own_ anger get the best of me, and I took it out on you, who did not deserve it.”

The whisper of clothing brushing together, and Sam knew that Castiel had taken Dean into his arms.

Castiel’s eyes were tired, but his face was otherwise unreadable when he passed through the library and locked eyes with Sam. Dean carried Castiel’s bag in one hand, and let himself be lead to his room by the other.

~*~

It took five hours for Dean to begin yelling again.

~*~ 

Sam poured himself far too much to drink and got down every drop. He stayed awake in the library, fuming, vision swimming, making himself listen to the broken angel and hatchling demon battle in the little bedroom.

~*~ 

It was more than a decade ago when he last sat up eavesdropping like this. He had carefully slipped his pistol between the couch cushions when he heard Jessica climb out of bed and pad through the dark to find him in the living room of their apartment. She flipped on the overhead light, and blinked towards him.

“Honey, why are you-“ she paused, interrupted by a muffled shout from Wendy, their next door neighbor, and a quick, heated response from her boyfriend. “Is it bad this time?” she whispered, understanding.

“It’s not going to get any worse,” Sam answered, stroking the barrel of the gun where she couldn’t see it. “Go back to bed, baby.”

“Are you going to call the cops?”

“If I need to. I’ll be back as soon as they calm down.”

A week later, Wendy began piling boxes of her possessions outside of their apartment. Her boyfriend kept up a stream of livid criticism the entire time she worked, to which she occasionally barked out a vicious response.

Sam caught the guy as he turned the corner into the breezeway to follow Wendy to the street. Sam held him by the throat with his forearm. In his left hand, he noisily flicked open a switchblade and made sure it was visible. He wanted to keep this conversation short.

The guy scrambled for his keys the second Sam let him down, and made himself scarce for the duration of his girl’s departure. Sam helped her pack a few pieces of furniture into a friend’s trailer, and Jessica exchanged numbers with her.  Sam didn’t want to alarm Wendy any more that she already had been, but he still pulled her aside and explained to her in no uncertain terms that he would not hesitate to make good on the promises he’d suggested to her boyfriend. If she needed him to.

He caught Jessica staring at him several times over the next few days. She had asked to look at the knife he’d pulled on Wendy’s boyfriend, and she gave it back to him without opening it for herself. Sam made a concentrated effort to be particularly tender with her that week, leaning close so that he could speak softly to her, bending to trail kisses over her shoulders as she cooked or did homework, and taking her slowly and reverently in bed, whispering out declarations of his devotion and her beauty after she’d come undone under his mouth.

Sam listened to Castiel raise his voice. The air crackled through the bunker. Several books were suddenly jerked of their own volition from the library shelves. They crashed to the floor, a few narrowly avoiding Sam. Both the bulbs in the table’s lamps shattered, and a chair overturned. In the dim, Sam poured himself another drink.

~*~ 

Sam gave it two days, and cornered Castiel. Sam waited until his brother was out of the bunker. Had seen Dean off at the front door as Dean peeled away, windows down, Boston blaring, frantically lighting a cigarette with his right hand, gripping the steering wheel in his left.

Castiel was thumbing through his text messages in the library, and heaved a breath when Sam sat down across from him, as if he knew what was coming.

“Cas, he’s hurting you.”

“I can handle him, Sam.”

“Cas, it’s not a secret that you’ve wanted a romantic relationship with Dean for years, and I- that thing on his arm is making him wild, and- I’m just worried that this is happening now. I think the Mark lowers his inhibitions-“

Castiel interrupted, indignant, “Do you think that I’m taking advantage of your brother? While he’s all ‘coke-d up’ on the Mark?”

“No, man, no, I don’t think that.” He extended a placating hand towards the angel. He couldn’t help but throw a single, anxious glance toward the fragile lightbulbs above them. “I think it lowers his inhibitions enough to let him express feelings he has for you that were already there, okay? Probably been there for years, too. But, I think it may also lower his inhibitions about having a conscience when it comes to your feelings.”

“Sam, I know you love him, and I do, too. What else is there?”

“Cas, no. No, this isn’t okay anymore. It was different, okay? It was different when we were all just friends, just brothers-in-arms, but it’s not like that anymore. You’re giving more now, Cas. You’re exposed. And not only is he not reacting to that by being more careful, he’s actually worse. You’re giving him these inches, and he’s driving over them for miles.”

Castiel’s eyes were closed, like he was mustering every scrap of patience he possessed.

“I can handle him,” he repeated.

“That’s not good enough!” And Sam was disgusted that he was adding to the shouting in this house.

Castiel managed to keep his own voice under control, but Sam felt the hair on his arms stand up when the angel’s perilous gaze pinned him in his chair. Sam felt the familiar tingle of Grace, felt it like pressure against his chest, holding him down. He wondered if Castiel could feel his frantic heartbeat through the touch. The angel growled, “I love him. And I don’t care what forces brought us here, or that he’s not well. I’m not spending one more second of my existence without him.”

The Grace released Sam, and Castiel locked himself in Dean’s room.

~*~ 

Sam rented a hotel room outside of Lebanon for three days, until Dean called and invited him to dinner.

“Cas is pretty sick with himself, man,” he said over the line. “Heard he got a little feral on you.”

“Yeah,” Sam exhaled, “Yeah, he left me some voicemails.”

“We are both sorry, Sam. We can’t stand you not being home, though.”

Sam agreed to return to the bunker, and when he arrived, Castiel was absent. Dean assured him that Castiel was only picking up a shift of Angel Duty with Hannah.

Dean was repentant, bordering on affectionate, to his little brother for the rest of the evening. Is was easy to put it behind them. So much else was behind them.

~*~

The next morning, Sam carefully crafted a grilled cheese sandwich for Dean, and when Castiel called him directly, asking for assistance with locating his vessel’s daughter, Sam packed without question.

When they shared three whiskeys that evening, waxing poetic about fatherhood, Sam felt more relaxed than he had in weeks.

They could do it. They could be happy together.

~*~

Dean looked like a deity, on his knees to accept the bloody sacrifices laid at his feet.

Goddamn it. No. Sam fell to his knees before his brother, just as worshipful.

“Dean. Dean. Hey.” He gripped Dean by the face. “Tell me you had to do this.”

Dean wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“I didn’t- I didn’t mean to.”

Sam shook his head. “No.” He’d gone through too much. _They’d_ gone through too much to get Dean back from that poisonous, uncontrollable transformation. He could feel Castiel’s eyes as surely as if they were searchlights roving his brother’s face, burning Sam’s shoulder as they passed. “Tell me it was them, or you!”

Dean’s eyes flicked back and forth between Sam’s. His mouth trembled farther open, he hitched in a breath to answer, but nothing came out.

Sam let his hands drop from his brother’s face.

~*~

End.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from Barcelona's "You Will Pull Through".


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